IBM today announced plans to acquire DataMirror, a firm specializing in real-time changed data capture (CDC) and replication technologies. This is a great move for both companies, and will ultimately be a valuable option for customers of IBM’s Information Server.

IBM wins because it fills in a significant gap in its real-time heterogeneous data integration story — specifically the ability to enable log-based CDC techniques for sources that are not DB2. (IBM was a Leader in the recent Forrester Wave evaluating Enterprise ETL, but they were behind some of their primary competitors in its support for CDC). CDC is an attractive data integration technique for scenarios in which operational data is needed on a more real-time basis and the intrusiveness on source system performance of a typical ETL extraction is not an option. Log-based CDC ensures minimal, if any, impact on the performance of the operational source systems. IBM also now has a more compelling data replication and availability portfolio.

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Today began with very interesting news — Autonomy entered into a definitive agreement to purchase message archiving and eDiscovery vendor Zantaz. This is a great purchase for Autonomy. They have already integrated IDOL server into Zantaz's archiving and eDiscovery applications, so they can capitalize on synergies immediately. eDiscovery is a hot market for both companies — the combined entities will have likely the best brand value in the eDiscovery space. With organizations truly called to action by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCPs), Autonomy/Zantaz has the solution set to help implement a short-term solution that can evolve into longer-term information management strategies (see our eDiscovery market overview for more information on how the FRCPs have become an information management spending driver).

This also makes Autonomy more attractive to the larger vendors, and I would not be surprised at all to see a CA, EMC, IBM, or Oracle in turn acquire Autonomy. Oracle makes the most sense as it is the only of the big infrastructure vendors that lacks the message archiving capability that Zantaz could provide.